1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information systems, and is more particularly related to data processing over a packet switched network.
2. Discussion of the Background
Directory assistance services provide a viable source of revenue for telecommunication service providers and has proven to be an efficient mechanism for a customer to obtain information about a party whom the customer seeks to contact. Directory information is maintained by data providers (e.g., local exchange carriers (LECs), and Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), who provide directory “listings” to the telecommunication service providers for a fee. These data providers, as third parties to the service provider, typically require compensation when a listing is used. The conventional voice access directory assistance (i.e., “411” call) provides automated prompts to the customer to obtain the listing that the customer is seeking. This conventional system also employs a live operator to ensure that the customer is given the proper listing. For example, a typical scenario involves a customer dialing “411” on a telephone station and being prompted to state the name of the party that the customer seeks to contact as well as the city that the party resides. If there exists multiple listings, the live operator may intervene to gather more detailed information so that the correct and intended listing is provided. The live operator may, for instance, ask the customer to provide address information to determine which one of the multiple listings the customer seeks to obtain; thereafter, a proper determination of the desired listing can be made by the live operator. In this manner, only the actual listing that the customer utilizes translates into a charge for the customer; that is, the customer is not charged for multiple listings. For the purpose of usage tracking, standard call detail records can be employed to track charges. Additionally, such a directory assistance system ensures accuracy of the listing through the intervention of a live operator. For the service provider, the greater time that is spent servicing a particular customer through operator intervention, the greater the loss of potential revenue, in terms of opportunity cost.
Given the popularity of the World Wide Web—for that matter, the Internet in general—on-line directory services have emerged to provide an analogous service to that of the telephony based directory service. Many directory services that are provided on-line are provided as a free service, resulting in a lost of revenue to the service provider. In the implementations in which the service provider charges for use of the directory listings, there exists no mechanism to determine which listings are used by the customers. Consequently, the service provider has to compensate for all the directory listings, irrespective of use, resulting in over-compensation of the data providers. This approach results in an unnecessarily high cost to the service provider, and thus, the customers. Also, inaccurate tracking can result in potential fraud, as the customer is in a position to easily deny retrieval of the listings.
Further, currently on-line directory services lack comprehensive information about a particular party. With the information explosion, individuals in today's modem society can be reached via many other means than the conventional land-line telephone directory number. For example, these individuals possess numerous contact information, such as e-mail addresses, URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) information (i.e., web site), cellular telephone number, facsimile number, pager number, post office addresses, etc. Such comprehensive information is expensive to maintain, particularly, if the service provider cannot adequately track usage of the information; the cost of subscribing to the database of the data provider would be cost prohibitive for the service provider. Moreover, data integrity poses a challenge as such contact information necessitates continual updating.
In one conventional client-server approach to supporting on-line directory services, state information is maintained on the servers. The server that receives a directory request from a client needs to maintain information regarding the request (i.e., state information). Under this scenario, because the server stores state information pertaining to a particular request, this specific server must continue to service the requesting client. Essentially, this conventional approach mandates that the requesting client return to the specific server, as some state information is required for billing, for example. The drawbacks with this technique involve issues of availability and load balancing. Because a client request is tied to a particular server, the availability is negatively impacted in that if the specific server is down, then no other server may process the client request. Therefore, system availability is reduced. With respect to load balancing, the traffic associated with the client requests cannot be readily directed, thereby hindering system performance. Another related approach to supporting on-line directory services uses a global state mechanism shared by all servers (such as a logically central database). The main drawback of this technique is the additional complexity in the system needed to support the shared state mechanism. If not designed carefully, the shared state mechanism may also fail to meet availability and performance requirements.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for improved approaches for providing directory services on-line. There is also a need to accurately track use of the directory listings. In addition, there is a need to provide directory services to customers cost-effectively. There is also a need to minimize development and implementation costs. There is still a further need to improve system availability and system performance. Therefore, an approach for providing retrieval of information which can be tracked and maintained cost-effectively is highly desirable.